Honeycomb-Hokey Pokey - Crunchy Bar

A New Zealand Classic, especially delicious if you top it with chocolate in the end. I made this for a friend, who's son is extremely allergic to milk. He loved it!

Ingredients

2 cups ( 440g) sugar, 2/3 cup honey, 120g butter, 1 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda ( baking soda/Natron), 600g dark chocolate, melted

Instructions

Place the sugar, honey and butter in a large saucepan over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Place a candy or sugar thermometer in the saucepan and simmer for 7-8 minutes or until the mix reaches 150°C. Take off the heat and remove the thermometer. Add the bicarbonate of soda and stir untilthe mixture is golden and foamy. Pour the mix into a lightly greased 28x38cm baking tin. Set aside for 30min or until hard. Spread with chocolate and set aside for another 1 hour or until chocolate is set. Remove the honeycomb from the tin and break into pieces to serve.

Cantucci - Italian Biscuits

If we go to Italy I can not resist these biscuits. They are delicious to coffee and sweet wine.

Ingredients:

250g whole almonds, 175g sugar, 3eggs, 1 tablespoon grated lemon rind, 

about 2 tbls lemonjuice, 450g flour, 4teaspoons baking powder

Instructions:

Beat eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the lemonjuice and rind. Mix flour with baking powder and mix bit by bit under the egg-sugar mix.

Mix in the whole almonds. The dough will be quite firm. On a floured surface, make 5cm thick rolls. Bake these rolls at 175°C for 35-40min.

Take the rolls out of the oven, cool for a bit. Love the oven on.

Cut the rolls in 1cm thick slices, lay them out on baking tray. Bake them again for 15 min until golden brown.

For coconutlovers the absolute bliss, moist, yummy coconut cupcakes.

Ingredients:

Toasted Coconut: 1 cup (3 ounces) shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)
Coconut Cupcakes:1 1/2 cup all purpose flour,1 tsp baking powder,1/4 tsp salt, 12 tbsp butter, at room temp, 1 cup sugar, 3 large eggs, lightly beaten, at room temp, 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 tsp coconut rum (Malibu brand works well), 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract, 1 cup shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)
Coconut Pastry Cream Filling: 3/4 cup whole milk ,3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 vanilla bean,4 large egg yolks ,1/3 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons coconut rum (Malibu brand works well)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 

 Instructions: 

To toast the coconut: Preheat oven to 150°C. Spread the coconut evenly onto a baking sheet and toast until lightly golden brown, stirring once, about 8 minutes. Turn off the oven and let the coconut sit in the oven until very dry and crunchy, about 10 minutes longer. Let coconut cool before using to decorate the frosted cupcakes.

To make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 170°C. Line 16-18 standard muffin cups with paper cupcake liners. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Cream butter and sugar together at medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.
About a tablespoon at a time, add the eggs. (If mixture appears curdled, stop adding the eggs, increase speed to high, and beat until mixture is smooth and shiny. Return to medium speed and continue adding the eggs.) Continue beating until mixture is ivory colored. the entire process of adding and beating the eggs should take 3-4 minutes.
Reduce speed to low. In 3 additions, add the flour mixture alternating with 2 additions of the coconut milk. Add the rum and vanilla and beat until smooth. Remove bowl from mixer and fold in the shredded coconut.
Spoon batter into the prepared muffin pan, filling each cup about two-thirds full. Bake at 170°C until the tops spring back when lightly pressed and a cake tester comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
Allow cupcakes to cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan and cool completely on wire rack.

To make the pastry cream filling: Combine the whole milk, coconut milk and vanilla bean and scraped vanilla seeds in a medium nonreactive saucepan and bring to a simmer over low heat.
Whisk together the yolks, sugar and cornstarch in a large bowl. Remove vanilla bean from warm milk. Slowly whisk the warm milk into the egg mixture then return the mixture to the pot over medium heat and bring to a boil, whisking constantly, until thickened. Scrape the mixture into a clean bowl and whisk in the rum and vanilla extract. In order to avoid a skin forming on the pastry cream, cover with plastic wrap pressed directly onto the surface of the pastry cream. Refrigerate until cold, at least 2 hours.

To make the frosting: In the bowl combine the cream cheese, butter, coconut pastry cream, vanilla extract on low speed. Add 2 cups of the icing sugar and mix until just smooth (don't whip). You may or may not need the remaining 1 cup icing sugar depending on how stiff or sweet you want your frosting.

To fill and frost: With a paring knife inserted at an angle, gently cut out a cone shaped hole from the cupcake. Spoon about 2 teaspoons coconut pastry cream into the center of the cupcake. Slice off some of the bottom of the cone and replace the top of the cupcake. Alternatively, using a pastry bag, insert the tip into the top of your cupcake and pipe the pastry cream into the center.
Frost your filled cupcakes with the cream cheese frosting. Make sure to cover the cut marks with the frostin. Sprinkle frosting with toasted coconut. Store cupcakes in the refrigerator.

Mars Bar Cheesecake

Yumm, Yumm, Yumm if you like Mars Bars.....

I

Ingredients

1/4cup of water, 3 teaspoons of gelatine, 500g softened cream cheese (Philadelphia), 1/2 cup of sugar, 3 Mars Bars, chopped finely, 1 tablespoons of vanilla sugar, 250g chocolate biscuits, 125g melted butter, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 20g butter extra, 300ml thickenend cream, 60g finely chopped chocolate

Instructions

Crush biscuits until fine breadcrumbs, add butter and vanilla sugar until just combined. Press mixture evenly into a (with paper prepared) base and up 1/2 the side of a spring form tin. Place on a tray and refrigirate until firm ( about 30 min). Meanwhile to make the butterscotch sauce, combine brown sugar, extra butter and 2 tablespoons of cream in a small saucepan and stir over small heat (no boiling) until sugar disolves.

To make the chocolate sauce, combine chocolate and another 2 tablespoons of cream in another small saucepan. Stir until chocolate melts. Sprinkle gelatine over hot water, stir until the gelatine disolves. Cool for several minutes.

Beat creamcheese and sugar in a bowl. Stir in gelatine mix into creamcheese mix. Add sliced Mars Bars. Fold in rest of cream.

Pour half of the cream cheese mix into crumb crust, drizzle chocolate and butterscotch sauce over cream cheese mix, Pull a skewer backwards and forwards to make a rippled effect. Repeat with remaining creamcheese mix and sauces. Cover cake, refrigirate several hours or overnight until set. 

You can garnish with extra Mars Bars, for effect.

Dampfnudeln

Not a typical 'cake' recipe today, but an alltime family classic and favorite. It is a kind of dumpling cooked in caramel sauce, served with vanilla sauce. It is a bit tricky to make but well worth the effort.

The doggy friends of my sister are looking forward to their dog camp, as I will come for one night and make a HUGE batch of them. :)

Ingredients:

For the dough: 250g flour, pinch of salt, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 40g butter, 15g fresh yeast or one packet of dry yeast, 100ml of milk, 1egg

For the caramel-sauce: For each batch about 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons sugar and 200ml milk.

Instructions:

Make a dough of all the ingredients, stand to rise at a warm place for 1 hour. 

Form balls about fist size on a floured board. 

Use a heavy pan where you have a fitting lid to it. In the pan, melt butter and sugar until disolved and just turning brown. Place about 5 dough-balls into the pan ( or as much as loosly fit), pour on top the milk, immediately close pan with lid and reduce heat to low. With the heat you have to figure it out a bit yourself. It could be that the batch turns out too white if heat is too low, but if it is slightly too high, they burn easily. LEAVE THE LID ON FOR 20 MINUTES, NO LIFTING, NO PEEPING!!!.

This is essential. Otherwise you have some chewy yuckball in caramelsauce.

After 20 minutes, remove dampfnudeln from pan, serve with vanilla sauce, cook the next batch

Eastercake - Osterkuchen

This Easter, for the first time I got served this beautiful tarte-like cake. For some reason I have never had this traditional cake before so, as here in Switzerland it is still Easter, I will post it.

Ingredients

Pastry: 250g flour, 125g butter, 1egg, 500ml milk, pinch of salt

Filling:  3 egg yolks, 150g sugar, 100ml cream, 100g quark, 50g raisins, 100g ground almonds, grated rind of 2 lemons, 100g short grain rice precooked in milk, 3 eggwhites, 3 tablespoons rasberry jam

Decoration: almond slices and icing sugar

 Instructions

For the base, mix flour, butter, milk, egg and salt to a firm dough, leave in fridge for 1 hour. 

For the filling, beat egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix quark with the cream and combine with the sugar-egg mix. Fold in almonds, raisins, lemon and pre-cooked rice. At last, beat egg whites until they form a peak. Fold carefully into the rice-quark mix.
 Preheat oven to 190°C. Roll out base dough into a buttered pie tin. Use a fork  to lightly punch some holes into the base. Layer with rasberry jam, top with the quark-rice mix and bake for about 25 min.
When cooled , sprinkel with almonds and icing sugar

Beautiful Strawberry Heart Shortcake

A friend of mine is getting married, the team at work are preparing the nibbles for the event. Decided it hast to be something hearty.., beautiful.. So am pre testing for the big day. Myrtha, nooooo peeeeeeeeping, hahahhahaha

 Ingredients:

500g fresh strawberries, 1 3/4 cups flour, 3 tbsp sugar (1 tbsp for the shortcake, 2 for the strawberry topping), 1/2 tsp salt, 6 tbsp cold butter, 3/4 cup cream

 Instructions:

Rinse the berries, reserving 8-10 small to medium ones with pointy tips. These will be your hearts. Preheat oven to 230°C.

Slice remaining strawberries into quarters and toss with 2 tbsp sugar to coat. Set aside.

  Pour flour into measuring cup, then level off with a knife. 

I’ll repeat it again just in case you missed it the first time: do not level off by shaking or tapping the measuring cup. You’ll get dry nasty muffins, and nobody wants that.

Sift the  flour with baking powder, add salt and sugar. Cut up the butter, which should have been in your fridge all this time, a little bit to get the blending going. Dump into the flour, then use a pastry blender or two knives to blend together. You’re done when there are no remaining chunks of butter in there. Add in the cream, then mix until all ingredients are moistened.

Let that sit a bit while you create your strawberry hearts. Pull off stems, carve out the pit with a paring knife, then slice in half. Shape each half into a heart by carving a V at the notch (where the stem used to be).

Since the berries will be pushed into the dough, the edges don’t need to make a perfect heart, but the V at the top is pivotal.

Scoop two heaving tablespoons of batter into each spot of your muffin pan, then press one of the strawberry hearts into each.

Bake for 12 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool a minute or two in the pan, then transfer to wire rack to cool. Serve to your dearest love with sugared strawberries and whipped cream.